Some Luck Read Free Page B

mittens, then situated his cap around his head and tied the itchy straps beneath his chin. She slipped on his shoes and tied them. He began to whimper.
    But they paid no attention to him. She folded the big flaps of the blanket he was lying on over his face and said, “Jake is hitched up and ready, right?”
    “He’s got his own blanket over his haunches, and the buggy is full of blankets.”
    “What’s Ragnar going to do for the evening?”
    “Stay right here. He’s got tomorrow off.”
    She put him, blinded by the blanket, into Papa’s arms and, probably, left the room. A moment later, that blast hit him, and he knew they were out the front door and onto the porch. He didn’t dare move, and he couldn’t move, anyway. Papa paused, then went down, then paused, then went down, then paused, then went down.
    “Oh,” said Mama behind him. “Slippery.”
    “Ran out of salt.”
    “Be careful, then.”
    “You be careful. You’ve got the pie.”
    “I’m being careful. But there will be plenty of pie.”
    “Hope so.”
    “And Frankie’s birthday cake. My mother is making her angel food.”
    “Mmm,” said Papa. Now he set Frank in the crook of his arm and gripped him tight around the ankle, and said, “Evening, Ragnar. I’ll put Jake away when we get back.” Then the door to the buggy opened, and Frank was out of the wind and in Mama’s lap again, but he still could not move his arms or his head. He could kick his legs a little. The constriction was strange, or maybe perplexing, in that it didn’t require him to make noise of any kind. He lay there and they went on, up and down and forward—he’d done this before and liked it—and he watched things pass on the other side of the pane, everything dark against dark, until he fell asleep.
    Now he was propped against Mama’s shoulder, looking at Papa as Mama stepped upward. He was still immobilized inside his suit, and hot now, his arms stuck out straight to either side and his head not nestled into her neck, the way he liked it, but sticking up. Papa looked down and said, “Steep steps. Could you hold the rail?” And Mama said, “I’m okay now—the porch is clear.” Papa’s face was bright, and then they went through, into a bright, loud place, and he was pulled away from Mama, who said, “What a night!”
    There was a person here who always said to him, “Here’s my darling! Give Granny a smile! That’s my boy. Smiles like my father, even without many teeth,” and someone else said, “Your father didn’t have many more teeth than this baby, Mary!” And then there was laughing, and he was kissed on the cheek, and Granny sat him on her lap and unwrapped him piece by piece.
    Now he was sitting up on Granny’s knee—she had her hands around him, and he was bending and bouncing and shouting, because all of the light and the smiles were so exciting that he could hardly contain himself.
    “One year old!” said Granny. “Hard to believe.”
    “Just this time a year ago,” said Papa, “I looked at Dr. Gerritt and realized that he was drunk!”
    “Oh, Walter,” said Mama.
    “Well, he was. But, you know, he was like a horse that’s used to plowing the same field year after year, just did what he knew to do, and everything was fine.”
    “That was a piece of luck, Walter,” said Granny. “But what would we do without some luck after all?”
    One of the faces, one he’d never seen before, said, “My goodness, Mary, that is the most beautiful baby. Look at those big blue eyes! And already such hair. You don’t see that with blonds very often. My niece Lydia’s child is three, and her hair is still as fine as down.”
    Granny leaned forward to kiss, but she didn’t say anything. He walked toward some legs in overalls, and the legs stepped backward. He followed them. Some skirts swished around, too. When he sat down with a thump, hands grabbed him under his arms and stood him up. He headed toward a low table.
    Mama had now taken off her